THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

September 14, 2002

CHEMISTRY! The thing I know the most about! CHEMISTRY! The greatest subject of study ever devised! CHEMISTRY! The area in which I have not one, but two college degrees! CHEMISTRY! Let's talk about it here and now.

Have you ever noticed that we talk about a lot of chemical products in terms of strength? Consider "adult beverages." Whiskey and gin are "stronger" that beer and wine. The prescription pills that I take are stronger than the Robitussin I can buy at the grocery store. Sometimes we make things "weaker." Bleach from the bottle is too "strong" for some uses so we make it "weaker" by adding water.

What makes a chemical "stronger" or "weaker"? The answer my friends, at least as far as any chemical you have ever dealt with in your life, is concentration. Consider the bleach example I just mentioned. To weaken the bleach for a certain use, all that was done was that it was diluted. You see the bleach you buy at the store is nothing more than a water solution of sodium hypochlorite. When you buy it at the store it is about 2% sodium hypochlorite. When you add water to it, it becomes some lesser concentration.

Look at the other examples. Whiskey and gin are both usually sold at "80 proof." 80 proof means they are 40% alcohol. Wine by contrast can be no more than 10% alcohol while beer is limited to a little over 5% alcohol. The hard liquors are "stronger" than beer or wine because they have a much higher concentration of alcohol. My prescription pills contain exactly the same medicines as Robitussin, but the small pill has as much of that medicine in it as one-half bottle of Robitussin. Again, the pills are stronger because they are more concentrated.

We use chemicals to get things done. The strength of a chemical is really a measure of how much of that chemical is needed to do the job. We formulate it in solutions of varying concentration to make it convenient to use. For example, to wash a tub of clothes, it only takes a few drops of soap. It is however, a pain in the butt to use just a couple of drops of anything. So laundry detergents are formulated in a way that one-cup of the stuff you buy contains all the soap you need.

Most things we do are chemical reactions of some sort; whether we are talking about getting drunk, clearing your sinuses, or cleaning a stain, a chemical reaction controls the affect. Stronger things, that is to say more concentrated things, do the job faster or better because they can bring more molecules of the stuff to the area that is needed to do the work.

There is one other really interesting aspect of chemistry we need to discuss -- Chain reactions. Sometimes when a molecule reacts with another molecule, the reaction results in a new product and one of the original molecules so that is available to react again as long as the other molecule is available. The reaction just runs and runs, sustaining itself.

You knew it was going to come to this -- Let's talk about the church. First, let's be honest -- not everyone in a church is an "active molecule;" a lot of them are just solvent. I am not here going to judge who is what, that is not really my place, but I think I can say that there are far more "solvent" people than there are "active" molecules.

Having said that, I have said many times in this space, how much of what passes for growth strategies in the church these days may result in more people in the church, but they do not necessarily result in people of deep faith and trust in Jesus. I think it is fair to say that such pew-filling people are "solvent" people in the church.

If we consider our chemistry above, what this tells us is that growing the church by methods that produce "solvent" people, dilutes the "active" people and produces a weaker church. Now that may be fine in some circumstances. Weak bleach works fine for minor stains. In the 1950's for example, when society accepted basic Judeo-Christian morality, a weak church was fine. People did not need as much concentrated effort to make a conversion to the Lord -- they were half way there to begin with.

I would argue that it is very different today. Most people today are alienated from the church if not openly hostile. In today's world, the "stain" of unbelief is so nasty and so locked-in that it would take drums and drums of dilute bleach to clean it. I think the world today needs a concentrated, "strong" cleaner.

Thus, I think that shrinking churches may not be all bad. See as the church shrinks it also concentrates. If I have a weak bleach solution and want to make a concentrated solution of it, I just have to boil it a while. The solvent molecules boil off, but the active molecules do not and I am left with a stronger, more concentrated solution. Note also, that boiling is an uncomfortable, somewhat violent process. "Active" people are going to be the last ones to leave the church. It is sad to see the solvent people go, but what is left behind may just be the prescription for the time.

You see, there is one other wonderful thing about making new Christians. It's a chain reaction. If I need a strong solution to get it going, so be it, but once it gets going, Active people will begat active people, who will in turn begat more active people. Even better, if we start with a concentrated solution, such a chain reaction only serves to further increase the strength of the solution and so it can attack more and more difficult stains. (Too bad real life cleaners don’t work by chain reactions, huh?)

Maybe, just maybe, it is time to let the church shrink. Maybe we need to allow ourselves as active people to be concentrated, to become stronger. Maybe we should refocus our goals. Instead of wanting to be an active molecule in a large swimming pool, maybe we should try to be an active molecule in a bathtub full of active molecules, bumping into each other, competing over non-believers to react with.

Come to think of it, Jesus used a solution so concentrated that it had no solvent people, only 12 little active people. Yet, they changed the world. Let's change the world.

With Love,